Curses, Foiled Again
by nicnac918
Summary: Harry Potter and the Not-So-Deadly Summer Holidays


AN: I was reading tvtropes page for Harry Potter - Headscratchers - GOF, and someone asked why it was that Voldemort being revived with Harry's blood got him inside the blood protection and allowed him to touch Harry, but it didn't get him inside the blood wards based on that same protection. Theories abound, including one that pointed out that the blood wards required Harry to be under seventeen and to consider the Dursley's house home to work, neither of which applied to Voldemort. That resulted in this comment: "Now I'm imagining a scenario where a youthened Voldemort rents a room from the Dursleys to try to kill Harry. It's like the Odd Couple, except with the killing curse," and I just couldn't resist.

And just to be clear, this story takes place in the summer between Books 4 & 5, and is pure, unadulterated, parodyriffic crack. Seriously guys, this story has no nutritional value whatsoever.

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**June 8**

As Vernon went to open the door of his car to leave for work that morning, he heard a voice from the sidewalk behind him.

"You, filthy Muggle! Are you Vernon Dursley?"

Vernon could feel his face turning brilliant shade of red as he spun around. The boy looked about sixteen or so, with dark hair, light eyes, and a classically structured, but arrogant face. He wasn't dressed like one of _those people_ – though his outfit did look like something from one of those period pieces – but he had used one of _their_ words. Clearly, Vernon needed to get him out here as quickly as possible, before the neighbors saw. But at the same time he couldn't make too big a scene in chasing the boy off while standing out in front of the house, where the neighbors could also see.

"Who are you," he said, struggling to keep his voice reasonably even, "and what do you want?"

"I am the Dark Lord Voldemort!" the young man shouted, holding his hands in front of him in what Vernon could only assume was supposed to be a dramatic and intimidating gesture. "I have come to demand that you filthy Muggles allow me to live in your house so that I may kill Harry Potter!"

Vernon considered that for a moment. On the one hand this man was clearly one of _them_ and insane on top of it. On the other hand, he also wanted to kill Vernon's nephew.

"Head on in the house. Just tell Petunia what you told me and she'll set you up."

Aunt Petunia walked in the kitchen and sneered at Harry. "There you are," she said, as though she hadn't just told him to come in here and do the dishes five minutes ago. "We have a house guest. He's staying in your room; go help him get settled in."

Harry took a second or two to process that extremely unlikely turn of events. This was apparently a second or two longer than Petunia had patience for as she snapped at him, "Get on with it then."

Harry made his way to the den where an even more unlikely sight awaited him, one that immediately set him on his guard. "Tom! How did you get here? Did you make another diary?"

"Of course not," Tom said, his voice a touch frantic. "There was only one diary. It was completely unique, and there is nothing else like it."

"Then who are you and where did you come from?" Harry asked suspiciously.

The Tom-doppelganger laughed, but not Voldemort's cold cruel evil laugh. It was more like a high-pitched giggle that was, quite frankly, really creepy. "Ignorant Potter! It is I, Lord Voldemort! I have taken a Potion to reduce my age so I may infiltrate your home and kill you once and for all!"

The most logical course of action would have been for Harry to pull out his wand and attack. The most logical question to ask would have been how, exactly, de-aging himself would have been necessary for Voldemort to break-in to the Dursley's house. But Harry, never one to go the logical route, asked, "But if you're Voldemort then why doesn't your body still look corrupted by evil, even if you are younger?"

Voldemort, also one to eschew the logical route, was in no way phased by this question. "It seems it wasn't my many attempts to become immortal that degraded my appearance. My mother's side of the family just ages poorly."

"You had a snake nose!" Harry protested.

"Very poorly," Voldemort conceded. "And now Potter, prepare to die!"

At this point Voldemort, who had apparently decided after the incident in the graveyard that he wouldn't be able to kill Harry by magic, rushed at Harry, presumably to try and beat him to death. Fortunately for Harry, and conversely, unfortunately for Voldemort, Harry had significantly more experience with escaping from attacks from physically larger attackers, than Voldemort had physically attacking someone. As such, Harry dodged, tripped Voldemort, kicked him, and then ran off to his room to write a letter to Dumbledore asking for help.

As he ran, he could hear Voldemort calling out in pain behind him, "Curse you, Potter!"

**June 15**

When the return letter from Dumbledore arrived, Harry was in the bushes hiding from both Voldemort, whose murder schemes were proving to be as annoying as they were ineffective, and the Dursleys, who had somehow managed to blame Harry for Voldemort's constant attempts to force them to do his bidding and calling them filthy Muggles, differentiating with "skinny," "fat," and "young" as needed. Hedwig dropped the letter in his lap, and Harry jumped up, ran into the room he was now sharing with Voldemort, sat down at his desk, and read the letter that he could have read just as well while still in his hiding spot.

_Harry,_

_I can see why you might be upset, but there's nothing that I can do at this point. Please try to understand, there is a reason that you need to stay at your Aunt and Uncle's house, and we can't risk alienating them either. Just know that this is for your protection, and we're all doing everything we can to keep you safe from Voldemort._

_Dumbledore_

Well, that was a bust. Harry tried to think of another way to impress on Dumbledore that Voldemort was _in his house and trying to kill him_, when suddenly he threw himself forward, lying flat on the desk. Half a second later a large butcher's knife from the kitchen was embedded in the wall at the same height that his head had just been.

"You're fixing that hole," Harry said to Voldemort without turning around. "And cleaning the knife."

"Curses," Voldemort swore. "Foiled again."

**July 2**

Harry was busy working on his homework that morning – one of the upsides of having Voldemort in the house was that he demanded that Harry have as much time as he wanted to do his schoolwork on the grounds "my opponent must be as skilled and worthy as possible, so that my inevitable crushing defeat of him will be all the more impressive" – when Voldemort banged open the door to their room. "Potter!" he called, "I made you breakfast."

Harry inspected the tray Voldemort was carrying. It looked like a recreation of a breakfast from a television show, if that recreation was made by two blind five year olds and their equally blind puppy.

"Aunt Petunia let you in the kitchen?" Harry asked skeptically.

"I pushed the skinny filthy Muggle down the stairs. She and the other filthy Muggles went to the hospital to tend to her broken limbs," Voldemort told him. With some effort, Harry was able to feel upset about this for a few seconds. Then it was over.

"Now eat," Voldemort commanded.

Harry eyed the food pointedly. Then, just as pointedly, he opened the drawer, pulled out the bezoar he had started keeping stashed there, and set it down on the desktop. "I'm not hungry."

"Curses," Voldemort muttered.

**July 25**

Harry woke up to the feel of something rustling underneath his covers. Throwing the blanket back, Harry was in no way surprised to see an adder tucked under there with him.

"Friend," Harry said to the snake, "I'm sorry if my companion disturbed you in any way. You're welcome to spend the night here in the warmth, and in the morning I'll find you a patch of sun to bask in."

"Thank you," the snake agreed, curling up on Harry's chest.

"You know," Harry announced after he had pulled the blankets back up, "Adders don't actually have enough poison to kill a person. And even if they did, I'm still a Parselmouth."

Voldemort let out a sound that was probably a muffled snore, if snores sounded like "Curse you."

**August 18**

"There he is minions!" Harry heard Voldemort call out behind him. "Go and vanquish him!"

Harry, who had been walking to the supermarket to get some stuff Aunt Petunia had said she needed "right now," broke out into a run. Well, it was less of a run and more of a light jog. Harry didn't want to discourage the gaggle of five-to-eight year olds that were chasing him _too_ much. (As it turned out Voldemort's charisma with murderous, racist, and ambitious and/or psychopathic people of his own and the following two generations or so did not translate well amongst Muggle teenagers. The little kids did seem to like him at least, though that seemed to be mostly because they thought he was funny.)

After a minute or so, the leader of the pack caught up and grabbed Harry around the waist. Harry "fell" and let the kids dog-pile on top of him, tickling anyone who came within reach. This continued on for a few minutes, Voldemort apparently misinterpreting the children's shrieks of joy as screams of terror and war cries.

Eventually, though, Harry started pushing the kids away more seriously, telling them that he really did have something to do, and he had to go now. There was a chorus of "awwws" and disappointed noises, which made Harry grin. "We can play more tomorrow. For now why don't you all go take down the Dark Lord Mort?" Mort, of course, being the name the children had dubbed Voldemort with, after declaring his usual alias as "too weird and hard to say."

With bright grins and mischievous glints in their eyes, the children spun around as one and began chasing down Voldemort, who turned tail and ran, screaming retribution on all those who betrayed him.

Harry continued on his way, still grinning, with echoes of "Curse you all," ringing in his ears.

**September 1**

"You're sure you aren't going to attack the Hogwarts Express?" Harry asked Voldemort. The two were in the backseat of Uncle Vernon's car on the way to King's Cross Station.

"Of course not," Voldemort scoffed. "The Hogwarts Express is an integral part of the Hogwarts' experience. I have fond memories of that train."

"I didn't think you had fond memories of… anything except murder and torture," Harry said.

"Of course," Voldemort said nostalgically. "That's where I met my first rival, you know. Ahh, Myrtle."

"Moaning Myrtle was your rival?" Harry asked, incredulous.

"Until I killed her in our fifth year," Voldemort agreed. "That was a good day. Have you killed your school rival yet?"

"I'm not going to kill Malfoy!" Harry objected.

"Your rival is Lucius Malloy's boy?" Voldemort said.

"Malfoy," Harry corrected, and then wondered why he bothered. Voldemort should keep track of his own minions.

"I approve," Voldemort continue on, completely ignoring Harry's comment.

"Thank you?" Harry responded.

After that the car ride lapsed in silence, aside from a brief scuffle where Voldemort tried to make Harry swallow a cyanide pill and Harry tried, rather more successfully, to throw the pill out the window.

Finally, they reached the station. "Get out, boy," Vernon commanded, and Harry jumped up to comply.

"Goodbye Potter. I'll see you at Christmas," Voldemort said with a malicious grin.

"Actually, I only come home for summer holidays," Harry told him.

"Curses!"

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The sequel to this story is "Curses, Foiled Again 2: The Electric Boogaloo" (story ID: 8542660)


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